Why We Are Here

But why is Things as They Are so important?

What is it we want to play (paint, write, film, speak...) on our blue guitar? We want to use it to come to a better understanding of something that is very difficult to understand: why are so many young people in distress?

When we listen to debate on this subject, we hear lists: "it's because of academic pressure....social media....stressed parents...cuts to services...."But then we often hear blame: "young people are just not as tough as they used to be, they need resilience lessons."Or we hear perplexity: "adults today simply cannot imagine what it is like to grow up in the 2010s." And these are the adults who are making policy decisions that shape young people's lives.

What we don't hear are the voices of young people trying to help them imagine - inviting them to see the world through their eyes, walk in their shoes. Normal political debate doesn't lend itself to that, but the arts do. Listen to a song, experience an artwork, watch a film we have made, and you will feel the texture of our reality. Maybe then you will understand that you cannot simply press a button to make this all go away. And then we can talk.

This website will be the gathering place for what we make. On this page we have gathered just some of the recent evidence of the crisis in young people's mental health.